Here are some images I have taken through a microscope, underneath the microscope are different types of cells on glass that are too small for the human eye to see. After taking these images I realised that the vibrant colours and different patterns look very similar to graffiti, so this is where all my ideas sprung from, which then led me to using a macro lens to get up close and photograph graffiti that had been spray painted onto walls allowing me to see the cracks of paint and see things that are not visible to the human eye.
Here is the animation I made with the images I had taken through a microscope. Before making this animation I tried to make it with the regular sized images however it didn’t work as well as the circles were not centered, so I decided to to crop the images so that the circles would be in line with each other so that the animation would flow better.
Jouko Lehtola was born in Finland, he was a Finnish photography artist, who had various themes within his work. Lehtola’s photography define Finnish urban youth culture of the 1990’s. He also raised awareness and issues of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and social taboos towards sexual deviations. His work was deep and thoughtful he was photographing not only people however details of crime scenes and overdose, people holding guns and knifes. Not only did he photograph the paraphernalia of drugs, but also domestic abuse, assaults and other violent crimes against both women and men.
In the 1990’s it was a period in life where the youth didn’t really think about their future, they drank to get drunk, sex was sport and a good fight was a measure for the evening spent. The youth had reckless energy and this is what Lehtola wanted to capture he wanted to capture the moment when the youth left the ‘magic circle’ which was home and became independent, making good and bad choices of their own.
He used many cameras to take his photographs with however the Canon EOS was his favourite. He’s known for his depiction of Finnish youth and the grunge period. Lehtola did attend festivals to capture the youth culture, and he was always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave, he was everywhere.
Sally Mann
Sally Mann is an American photographer best known for her black and white portraits of her family also known for her landscape images. Since the 1970’s, she produced a series of photographic portraits, landscapes, and still life’s and is best known for her intimate portraits of her family. One of her most famous series of images is called ‘Immediate Family’ 1984-1994 which depicts her three children, who were all under the age of ten, the series of images explore the time between childhood and adolescence, it also explores many childhood themes such as napping, dressing up, playing games and many more however she also explores some darker themes within her photography such as insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality and death.
The series of photos from ‘Immediate Family’ caused a lot of controversy, many people accused Mann of child pornography this was because in some of Manns images the children often appeared naked and some people found this disturbing. Many people questioned whether Mann had exploited her children. Even though some people may not agree with how Mann photographs her children however she says that it is natural and ordinary for a mother to see her children in the nude, having cared for them and helped them grow.
In the late 1990s, Mann turned her attention to landscape photography.
Coplans was a British artist, he was an art writer, a curator, a photographer and also a museum director. He emigrated to the United States in 1960 and held many exhibitions in Europe and North America.
Coplans is well known for his series of black and white self portraits which portray his own ageing naked body, he depicts segments of his naked body to photograph however he never includes his face within these photographs, Coplans images are not focused on a specific man nor identity. Even though he is an old man with an ageing body with wrinkles he still manages to create beautiful images. When Coplans poses for these images he becomes immersed in the past and believes he is somewhere else, another person, or a women in another life, he feels very youthful when posing.
The technique he uses for making these photographs involves a polaroid positive/negative 4×5 film, so he could automatically see the results of his poses and then make immediate adjustments. He then later on decided to us a video camera connected to a television monitor to see the back of the 4×5 camera for an even more immediate mirror effect. Using the video camera depended a lot of accuracy and control.
In Coplans photography he portrays his images to be very beautiful and interesting and he says he feels alive when taking the series of images. Being a seventy year old man naked in these images this is something many people have not seen before, and it is a neglected subject matter. So he has taken images of his own body to show his audience that even though he is seventy years old and has wrinkles that he can still make it interesting and still show beauty within the images.
When it comes to art we mainly see women that tend to be naked and more on the slimmer side, this also happened within art history. So seeing images of a naked man is very different and can be strange to some people, however I find them very powerful and beautiful. He depicts how life is reflected in the body with the marks, the scars bruising and many more.
When displaying his work in galleries he loved to listen to what people had to say about his work as no one knew that the body in the photographs were him.
For the heads I made out of potters plaster I firstly started off with constructing a box made of wood. I had to measure my head to get the right sizes and dimensions, once I had made the box in the wood workshop I then began molding the clay in the box. I began slapping the clay in the box trying to get as much as a I could in there.
Here is my first attempt of creating a head with plaster in the box that I had made. I didn’t really like the outcome as its not what I had thought it would look like, however trying to create a head in a box with clay was quite a challenge as I had to mold the head upside down. I wanted to create something abstract so instead of using all of the tools I decided to use mainly my hands and fingers to mold the clay, I believe it was effective and abstract as it doesn’t look like a normal head it looks kind of scary looking, one thing that I did not like about this head is the face and how sharp and pointy some of the edges are this was due to me using my fingers and a wooden stick. However even though I did not like the outcome once I put the plaster head back into the box it became more interesting almost as if the box was the house for the head.
Here is my second attempt of using the box to create a head out of plaster. I was pleased with the outcome of this head compared to the first one this is because instead of using my fingers I decided to use my knuckles leaving the edges more round instead of sharp and pointy. I also decided to put lumps of clay in the mold to make the head a different shape as you can see there are some parts of the head that looks like there is a dent in it, I did this because I didn’t want the head to be just one big circular shape. I also didn’t carve a face into this head this was because I thought that using my knuckles would kind of create a face in its own way, and I believe it did, as you can see in the first picture out of these four images it looks like a side profile of some ones head.
Instead of leaving the twine heads how they were I decided to develop them even further.
Development for the first head
For one of the heads I decided to develop it even further, and glue cigarettes butts on to the twine and the reason I decided to do this was because it has been an idea of mine for a while, also it had a meaning behind it. The meaning and reason I decided to glue cigarette butts on to the twine is to portray the fact that in todays society many people are very quick to shut you down (stub out) and the fact that many people are very quick to judge a person, so I thought that the cigarette butts were a good way to portray this, especially because they have been used and have been stubbed out.
So the idea of the cigarette butt is portray that within todays society no matter how old you are or where you are, there are many people that look down upon you and can be very harsh on each other. So its kind of like a metaphor the idea that smoking can be very addictive and repetitive, implying that people can be the exact same.
Development for the second head
For the second head I decided to hang red string onto the twine, to follow on from the first head and to portray that once people ‘stub you out’ this then leads to a lot of emotion such as anger. I used the colour red to show this as the colour red portrays many things such as anger, blood or danger.
Development for the third head
Following on from the second head that portrays anger, I then decided to use flowers and leaves I found outside to show that no matter what people always shine and blossom no matter the circumstances people sometimes come out on top.
To make these cotton twine heads I started off with a plastic bag round my head, and getting someone to then apply masking tape over the plastic bag so then this would give me a head shaped ball. After creating the head form I then decided mix up flour and water creating a sticky glue that would hold all this twine together.
There was a few issues with using the flour and water, for example the glue didn’t stick the twine all together straight away so some of the twine would slip off and move position. To start off the process of wrapping the twine around I had to get a hot glue gun to stick the twine onto the head instead of using the glue mixture I had made, this was because the mixture was not strong or thick enough. After using the hot glue gun to stick the end bit of twine down I then began the process of wrapping it round the head multiple times. I had to put the twine in the bowl of glue I had made before wrapping it around the head so that bits of the twine would stick together.
After wrapping the twine around the head I then used my hands to apply the glue, I did this so that the glue would get into all the sections, making sure that it would all stick together and not fall apart after taking the tape out. Another issue I had was when I applied the glue to the head, the masking tape got rather soggy and wet which made the head change shape and it started to collapse because the glue was so heavy. However I didn’t mind as I wanted all three heads to look completely different and sort of distorted.
Final Outcome
Once the all three heads were dry I then had to remove the tape from inside which was kind of tricky as I didn’t want to ruin the sculpture or pick off any of the hard glue which was keeping the twine stuck together. I then decided to attach the three heads with a bit of string onto a stick to make it look like they were floating. The reason why I didn’t make the string that attached the heads to the stick the same length was because I thought they looked more effective and intriguing when they hung at different lengths.
Art materials can be anything. The most common art materials that are mainly used are acrylic, oil paint, pencil, watercolour and so on. However there are a huge range of materials that artists use that are so unusual that people would never thought it was possible. Materials can be a wide range of different things such as cutlery, wood, fabric, food.
Historically what materials did artists use?
One of the first ever materials to be used in prehistoric times was natural pigments. Artists used organic materials from plants, soil and even animals to create colours and different dyes to then apply to a surface. The first paintings in pre historic times were cave paintings that involved techniques such as dabbing, brushing and wiping the organic materials into stone. Some of the earth pigments included charcoal and yellow ochre, and even to this day many artists are still using charcoal. Materials were very limited in historical times.
Maurice Bennett
Maurice Bennett is an artist who uses pieces of toast to produce pixilated portraits. He began his toast art in 2000, his work is entirely made up of toast that is cast in bronze.
I decided to look into a very unique material that not many artists use and this is food. Maurice Bennett is an artist who uses pieces of individual toast to create these pixilated portraits and different patterns in toast, he began using pieces of toast in 2000. Before bronzing the toast, it is dipped in polyurethane, this is done so it preserves the art work so it stops it from going moldy. He bronzes the toast by using a flame as a paintbrush to create different patterns/shades of toast.
What inspired Maurice Bennett to use this unique material and the way he works was triggered by pacific motifs. Motifs in art is a recurring pattern or theme that appears in art, so the idea that Bennett repeats the process of burning multiple pieces of toast to produce his pieces. A motif can also relate to the subject matter of the art work. Not only was he inspired by pacific motifs, the idea of creating art work with pieces of toast also came to him during a barbeque.
Food has been a very key thing within art history around the 18th/19th century, when artists wouldn’t use the food as a material however would paint food in their artwork, such as painting scenes where people are socializing around food. Also, food would be a key object to paint as they are easy still life objects that were easy to get hold of. How ever in the 1960’s a new movement came out called eat art, where instead of painting the food the food became a material just like paint. Another artist who uses food as a material is Jan Sterbak who created a dress out of raw steak which weighed sixty pounds, he did this to make a visual statement of food and humanity.
Being an independent or a collaborative artist has always interested me, the idea of people buying my artwork, or owning my own shop or even having my art work displayed in a gallery is a big goal of mine. There are many challenges that may occur being an independent artist such as it can be very expensive from finding a studio to the amount of materials that are needed. Also another big challenge for artists is actually marketing their art work and selling it as the artists world is very crowded and chaotic, therefore new artists are often ignored and forgotten about compared to the artists who have worked their way up and have become well known.
Also another challenge to being an independent artist is that it can be very hard to become recognised. In modern society art has evolved and adapted massively, therefore more styles have been produced and it may be harder to produce art work that hasn’t already been done before, that people haven’t seen. Also being an artists involves harsh critics as some people might not like the style of the art, however some other people may love it.
Another career that interest me is art therapy, I love the idea of combining art with helping people out and it also involves psychology, which I enjoy. Art therapy is a method where people express how they feel through art or something creative, and can help peoples cognitive and sensory motor function. Art therapy can also relieve stress, it may help the clients self esteem, emotional thoughts and many other things.
To become an art therapist you would need professional experience in an area of therapy such as counselling or an area in health care, examples of these would be social work or an experience in nursing. You would also need to be registered with the health and car professions council, to become registered with the council you need to have completed a masters degree in art therapy or art psychotherapy, you will also need a degree in art, however this is not a must, but you would need to have a strong art background.
Contexts inside of art: Context in art is where artists work in regards to their environment, historical trends and traditions, social movements, cultural values, personal commitments and many more. Artists do not create contexts they work within them
Jenny Saville
One of themes I have decided to research is ‘The Body’. An artist who uses a lot of body imagery within her work is Jenny Saville. She is well known for her fleshy female figure paintings, Saville combines figuration and abstraction within her artwork to create direct images of human form. Jenny Saville goes against the art historical theme portraying women to be bigger in her artwork showing all the curves and dimples however this is very normal within modern society, for example looking back at historical art, artists regularly portrayed women to be small in size.
Jenny Saville has always been interested with the human form and how bodies move. The reason she paints the human body is to portray modern life within the body. Saville’s artwork goes against he historical image of women looking all perfect. She uses the female body in her artwork to portray the fact that its realistic and normal to have marks, cellulite, dimples and so on, the idea that not every women is flawless and has to look like the typical stereotype. Saville’s fascination with bodies extends to what people will endure to change them.
Daisy Collingridge
Another artist who uses the body within their work is Daisy Collingridge who uses a lot of textiles, sculpting different fabrics to form wearable pastel coloured body suits. Her artwork involves using traditional techniques such as quilting, applique, and cutting. Also she uses materials such as jersey, wadding, bean bag beans, calico or any stable fabric to support her artwork. Collingridge is inspired by the human anatomy and most of her artwork is very figurative, the squishy looking sculptures she produces reflect on the human form however with elements of fantasy and humour.
After making these amazing costumes, Collingridge is the one who wears them while they get photographed and says its an exercise to get into them. All of these costumes neither promote or demote one body type, the idea society only has one body type is ridiculous, so collingridges costumes kind of give you that realistic body image in a grotesque but funny kind of way. Her artwork is is more about the ideal way to inhabit a body.
Both these artists use the human body to break the norm that society expects us to be perfect, so both these artists do actually portray the real image of what its like to be human. For example the ideal body people give women is to be on a diet and to be very slim, there are many people in this world that are ashamed of their bodies, however both these artist portray it as a very beautiful thing showing the word that its normal to have lumps and bumps and that its not a negative thing. For example through Jenny Saville’s work she tries to create a new ideal about beauty, beauty is usually the male consideration of the female body, her paintings are beautiful and have their own individuality, but they have been convinced to despise their own body through the social structures. She represents something in between reality and the perception women have when they inspect their own bodies in the mirror and compare it on the scales.
That’s what I really love about both these artists, that they are portraying individuality, and showing the world that its a beautiful thing to have stretch marks and be unique.
